This is a "thinking out loud" post.
Several episodes of the sixth season of 24 have been "leaked". Torrents have been released and now it's a fairly simple exercise to find them and download them - if you are interested in television melodramas.
It took me under 10 seconds to find them on ISOHunt.
So, people look at this and wonder about the theft of intellectual property and advertising revenues and what not. But I'm wondering two other things Serial Release and Product Placement.
TorrentFreak says:
In July 2005, the pilot episodes of 5 upcoming TV series were leaked onto BitTorrent. Although many believed that it was ABC themselves who had leaked the episodes to get the hype going, it is unlikely that a mainstream content producer would do such a thing. Many upcoming episodes of the TV series Prison Break, among others, have been routinely leaked onto the Internet, and in particular, BitTorrent.
So we have two things here: Intentional and unintentional release onto the net.
With unintentional release, this could mean that the ability of any artist to release "serials" could be dramatically altered. Worst case being the need to resort to Just In Time shooting of new episodes - like shoot them the day they are released.
Serial cliffhangers and the ensuing buildup of anticipation is what keeps a show relevant during the off-season. But perhaps this model is no longer relevant - just with the advent of DVD releases and on-demand viewing.
For example, when the new Battlestar Galactica came out, I started watching it every week. But that didn't work with my schedule, so I was recording them. But then I'd forget to watch them at all. Now I'm just waiting for the DVDs.
For both the Torrent issue and the DVDs, shows like 24 win over BG for the same reason that 24 can weather intentional leaking. Product Placement. If you are Coke and you toss a few cans into 24 - you love Torrents. You love the additional exposures.
Probably not a lot of people drinking Coke on the Galactica.
There are two fundamental elements of entertainment storytelling here - the speed of release of the story (pacing) and the methods of funding.
It occurs to me that for advertisers, especially video media advertisers, initially it was all in the head - there were only the big three networks. Then with cable we started to see long tail video advertising, but it was still something with a needed focus.
With a total diffusion of delivery, the long tail is fully exploitable by low-cost product placement that can be viewed by millions of viewers into the future through download on demand (either legal or less than legal).
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